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In March of 1972
The Godfather had it's world premiere in New York City. It's making was long, at times painful and fraught with difficulties. Starting with the source, the book written by Mario Puzo and published in 1969 was an instant best seller. The term " Godfather " was a relatively new one. Per wikipedia, in 1963 mobster Joe Valachi gave testimony before a congressional hearing [ not unlike the one portrayed in Part II ] using the word " Godfather " to describe the head of a crime " family ". The words Cosa Nostra , consiglieri and others were mentioned in english for the first time in Puzo's book.
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| Vito and his son's |
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Paramount Pictures, who bought the book with the thought of making a quick $2 million dollar modern adaptation, had been in financial difficulty [ as had all of the majors studios in the late 60's ], though in the last couple of years, under production head Robert Evans, they had released some major successes:
Rosemary's Baby, Franco Zeiffirelli's
Romeo & Juliet, The Odd Couple, True Grit and others, the studio was also besieged by big budget losers such as :
Paint Your Wagon, Darling Lili, Waterloo, Catch 22 and more. So the idea of making a quickie, almost exploitation film of the
Godfather was tantalizing indeed.
Writer/director Richard Brooks [ Blackboard Jungle, Brothers Karamazov, Elmer Gantry ] was the first man offered the job. Brooks passed on it. After that practically a whose who of Hollywood A-list directors were offered it: Elia Kazan, Arthur Penn, Fred Zinnemann, Peter Yates and others all said no thanks. Production Chief Evans, feeling the story needed authenticity, asked Coppola to direct because Evans wanted the" smell of spaghetti ", he felt only an Italian could bring to the picture. Only problem is that Coppola also turned Paramount and Evans down. Though in desperate need of funds at the time and with a young family to support, Coppola did not want to make a film that would glamorize the dark side of his Italian heritage. Eventually, Coppola agreed to make the film but with one stipulation : It would be the story of a family. A family who's business happens to be organized crime. He also talked Evans and Paramount to up the budget somewhat and make the film in the period the novel takes place, 1945-1955.
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| Brothers |
The production of
The Godfather was battle all the way. The studio and Evans wanting their say in script, casting and cutting. Coppola, getting inspired by the potential of the project, had his own very definite ideas of how he wanted the film to be. Evans wanted big names in the cast [ or at least established ones ] while Coppola wanted actors whom he thought best for the part, generally unknowns which also would help keep the budget down. For Don Vito Corleone, Coppola wanted Marlon Brando. There was never another serious contender for it after Brando agreed to do a make-up/screen test and it was shown to the Evans and the Paramount brass. Burt Lancaster wanted to play The Don and he lobbied hard for the part. Laurence Olivier was mentioned. There were good reasons the studio didn't want Brando. The last film he made at Paramount, the only Brando directed film
One-Eyed Jacks, ran way over schedule and over budget and ended up losing money. Brando's subsequent 9 or 10 films since
Jacks had all lost money with the seriously over budget [ by anywhere from $10-20 million, depending on the source ] 1962 epic remake of
Mutiny on the Bounty. Naturally the studio execs felt Brando, despite his talent, wasn't worth the trouble. But in the end Coppola had his way and Brando was the Don, though he was paid peanuts for the part, only $50,000. Today it's impossible to imagine another actor playing the role. As for the other parts, the biggest obstacle was the casting of Al Pacino as Michael, the Don's favorite, youngest son. All the execs and Gulf & Western [ they owed Paramount ] Chairman Charles Bluhdorn said no to Pacino. They felt he was to short. Evans said they didn't want " a runt " playing Michael. Execs threw out names like Ryan O' Neal, Warren Beatty, Jack Nicholson, Robert Redford. An unknown Robert DeNiro was tested for the part. Coppola held firm on Pacino, who had only appeared in a 2 films up to that point in his career the most recent being 1971's
Panic in Needle Park, and eventually got his way. Besides the casting of Don Vito, the casting of Michael was a key to the film's success. It made Pacino a star and earned him his first Oscar nomination.
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| Michael's revenge |
As the filming got underway on March 29, 1971, Coppola was besieged on all sides of the production; stories have come down though the years of Coppola feeling insecure of his job, surrounded by a crew who didn't believe he had the stuff to get the job on the screen, hearing rumors that he would be replaced any day by Elia Kazan, who had directed Brando memorably in
A Streetcar Named Desire and
On The Waterfront back in the 50's. Legend has it that Brando went to Evans, said he thought Coppola was doing fine, if the studio would just leave him alone, stay off his back and let him do his job. The original
Godfather film editor told Evans that the restaurant scene, where Michael guns down gang rival Sollozzo and police chief McCluskey, " wouldn't cut " and that Coppola had " no idea about continuity ". Rather than fire Coppola, Evans had veteran editor Peter Zinner look as the footage. Zinner thought it looked fine, so Evans fired the first editor and hired Zinner to replace him.
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| Coppola and Brando at work |
The production also encountered protests from the Italian American Civil Rights League [ founded by Joe Colombo head of one of the Five Families of New York ]. The organization didn't want the words mafia and Cosa Nostra used in the film. And according to the film's producer Al Ruddy's assistant, the filmmakers started to receive threats, parked cars in front of houses getting shot with bullets, as a warning not to proceed with the filming. That kinda thing.
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| " Look how they massacred my boy " |
During filming, the cast who idolized Brando, bonded around each other, practically taking on the aspects of a real family, with Brando and Coppola as the heads. There were Italian dinners with pasta, wine, bread, attended by the entire cast. Brando, who didn't cotton to all the reverential treatment, was a notorious practical joker. In the scene in which Vito comes home from hospital on a stretcher after being gunned down by a rival gang and had to be lifted by some real life teamsters up the stairs, Brando put extra weights under the blankets so the big, beefy teamsters were left huffing and puffing and couldn't figure out why the 190 pound Brando was so heavy to carry. The real clowns of the bunch were Robert Duvall and James Caan, each of whom took to " mooning " each other. When Brando caught sight of this he too joined in on the fun at one point " mooning " Caan and Duvall from his limo on the way home from location one day.
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| " I never wanted this for you ". Michael and his father talk business |
Post production was another battle between Evans and Coppola. Coppola's first cut ran about 2 1/2 hours. Evans wanted more [ rare for a studio head; they usually want movies to run 2 hours or less. Reason being: more show times per day ]. According to Evans, Coppola cut out the guts of the films. Per Coppola, the extra half hour he added were only cuts Evans had originally insisted on. Whatever the truth, the picture was the winner. 175 minutes long when released,
The Godfather was a huge hit. I mean
huge. The release pattern was unusual, opening in only 6 theaters in New York City, with a Los Angeles opening the next week. The film opened on 323 screens on March 29,1972, still a low theater count even then. It earned over $86 million in film rentals [ rentals is the amount of money returned to the studio whereas gross, which is what is reported after every weekend in today's world, is the total income it takes from the theaters. A movie's gross is approximately double the rental amount ] which if translated to 2012 dollars amounts to over $472 million dollars. And if we double that as the film's gross then
The Godfather made almost $1 billion dollars. Tremendous, especially for a serious movie. The film is speckled sub-titles to boot!
The Godfather is dark not only in theme but literally. Gordon Willis' photography is thick with shadows and blacks, the film also has a luster and sheen that is intoxicating. The acting in the film is top of the line from the leads to the smallest part.
The movie has some of the best known lines ever:" Leave the gun. Take the cannoli." " A man who doesn't spend time with his family can never be a real man." " I'm gonna make him an offer he can't refuse ". " Luca Brasi sleeps with the fishes." Never tell anyone outside the family what you're thinking again."
The Godfather is about as far as one can get to today's blockbusters, yet it saved Paramount Pictures and the industry in general which had been in the doldrums for at least the last 10 to 12 years, the last 5 or 6 being particularly rough as many studios were taken over by conglomerates like Gulf & Western. Some like MGM and Fox sold off major portions, if not all, of their backlots. Century City was once 20th Century-Fox' back lot.
The Godfather was nominated for 11 Oscars, winning just 3. The awards it did win were big ones: Best Adapted Screenplay by Puzo & Coppola, Best Actor Marlon Brando [ who infamously refused the award by sending up an American Indian girl named Sasheen Littlefeather, to protest Native Americans portrayals in Hollywood movies. Talk about biting the hand ] and Best Picture. The other big winner that Oscar night was Bob Fosse's
Cabaret which won 7 awards including Fosse for Best Director over Coppola. By the time the Oscars were presented a slight backlash over the film had begun. Some critics and Hollywood veterans were not crazy over the violence in the film and some felt
The Godfather, with all that money, was overrated, hence the light haul on Hollywood's biggest night of the year.
The film's reputation over the years, however, has soared coming in 21st this year in the
Sight & Sound 2012 magazine poll [ Hitchcock's
Vertigo was # 1 ]. It ranked 2nd in American Film Institute's 100 Years...100 Movies [ 10th anniversary edition. Welles'
Citizen Kane being # 1 ] And the film has had magnificent influence. Films about the mafia became a sub-genre all it's own. Such films as
The Don is Dead,
Black Caesar,
Crazy Joe,
The Valachi Papers,
Mean Streets all came fast on the heels of the film's success. Martin Scorsese has made a career with gangster films. And of course, Coppola's own
Godfather II in 1974.
The Godfather, like Vito's three sons in the film, has three different chapters.
Godfather II is also an acknowledged classic, but 1990's
Godfather III is generally thought of as a bastard child, not worthy of the first two films. I feel differently about that, but I'm not going into that now. Another post, hopefully next year will address that subject. So Happy New Year everyone. I'm gonna spend it with " The Family ".
Sources : The Godfather Wars- Vanity Fair magazine
BFI film classics: The Godfather by Jon Lewis
Wikipedia
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